


Contact

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alex asked why we even have this lever, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24524314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: The Master digs in, twists the knife, insists on the narrative that he’s constructed for the two of them. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”Again, the Doctor answers honestly. “No.”She feels the Master withdraw slightly, but the dark nothingness of the landscape tightens around them.He’s nervous.The Doctor and the Master have a telepathic chat. Written for Thirteen Fanzine Prompt Week Day 3: 'What Happened To Your Promise?'
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	Contact

The sky is dark.

There should be stars, should be galaxies, should be traces of a hundred thousand other worlds, but instead, there’s just nothing.

The void is so absolute that it’s stifling.

It’s not real. The Doctor knows that it’s not real, but that doesn’t make it any less painful to gaze upon. The Master’s mental landscape has always been markedly different than hers. For all the madness, the Master is an organized thinker. Plans have causes and effects. Information is catalogued and stowed away. Everything is starkly practical and has a set purpose, but she’s never seen it like this.

There are no sparking neurons.

No bright ideas lighting up the night sky.

No misguided dreams.

Just endless nothingness.

If it wasn’t for the words that slink against her mind, she would have assumed he was dead.

“Happy now?”

It’s a twisted echo of the taunts that she spoke in the ruins of Gallifrey — folded in on themselves and thrown back in her face — but unlike the Master, she does not answer the question with a lie.

“No.”

The Master digs in, twists the knife, insists on the narrative that he’s constructed for the two of them. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Again, the Doctor answers honestly. “No.”

She feels the Master withdraw slightly, but the dark nothingness of the landscape tightens around them.

He’s nervous.

Somewhere outside of this place, the Doctor’s lips tighten into a satisfied smirk, but it disappears a moment later. Lately, she has been too tempted by power, too intimately courted by the very instincts that she condemned. She is not here to gloat. She is not hear to kick him while he is down, however, she doesn’t really know what her goal was. Talk, mostly. Clear the air. See if he was still alive.

She doesn’t want to reform him. She already tried that.

She guarded a vault and gave chance after chance. Missy gave her hope and then took it away. She won’t make that mistake again. She won’t let herself be hurt like that again. She won’t unleash him upon the world again.

After a brief moment of silence, the Master poses the dreaded question. “Then why are you here?”

Immediately, the Doctor springs to her own defense. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”

“Not an answer, love.”

Silence stretches, expanding the universe with every twin heartbeat. It isn’t any brighter, but it’s bigger now. He’s getting comfortable. Or, at least, he’s projecting confidence. With the Master, the two states often conflate and overlap, feeding into each other until one can’t divine what is real and what isn’t.

It is part of why he is so good at what he does, and part of why she had been so deeply fooled by O.

She curtails the thought before it can bleed out, before the Master can catch its scent and lock on. He already knows that she was fond of O — fond of his mind, fond of his persistence, fond of his willingness to embrace the unknown — but she doesn’t need him to know that she is still haunted by it, still turning over text messages in her mind, trying to spot all the places where she should have known his real identity but allowed herself to be fooled instead.

The Doctor has always seen the best in people. Often, that’s a net positive, but it also leaves her open to manipulation and deception.

She resents that more deeply than anyone will ever know.

“I was wondering if you were still alive,” she says eventually.

It’s not the whole truth, but it’s honest enough. Maybe he’ll buy it. Maybe he won’t. Either way, he’ll play it to his own ends. At least there’s no one to hurt here. It’s just the two of them — two consciousnesses brushing up against each other at a distance that should be impossible.

Most Time Lords need physical contact to initiate telepathy. The Doctor, herself, relies upon it when communicating with humans, when wiping minds or swapping memories, but she’s never needed it with the Master. Back when they were students, they could mentally shout at each other from across crimson fields or within the strict, authoritarian confines of the classroom. They mentioned it to their peers once, but they scoffed. Once, she had been tempted to breach the subject with an adult, but she never dared. Given recent developments, that was probably for the best.

Who knows what cruel methods might have been used to exploit it?

They ripped her apart and robbed her of her memories in order to create regeneration. She doesn’t see why they wouldn’t do the same in order to replicate other abilities — isolating and unwinding and recreating DNA strands until they became cross-species compatible.

“You’re thinking,” the Master comments. “And not about me. Rude thing to do in my mind, don’t you think?”

Panic rises as she frantically tries to rein her thoughts in, barring the Master from accessing them. “I’m not. I never think. Thinking’s overrated.”

“We both know that’s a lie.” Boredom and amusement twist and twine until they are nigh indistinguishable. If they were in the same physical space, the Doctor would have shoved him.

The Doctor scoffs. “Like you never think.”

A sound rises in the dark. Faint, at first. The unshakable, incessant rhythm of twin heartbeats. It snags on the edges of her mind, taps into a primal worry that she can feel tensing the muscles of a body far, far away from here. “Stop it,” she spits. “Stop it. Now.”

It doesn’t stop. The Master merely talks over it. “Hard to think when this is all you hear. Impressive that I managed it at all, really. But you knew that. You once held me in your arms and promised me a place by your side. Even though I tortured your friends. Even though I tortured you. It was incredibly high and mighty of you. Hated it. And then you spent ages trying to convince me to be a better person, but you refused to have faith in that change. You didn’t come back for me. You left me there. Alone. To die. No promises. No gratitude. Nothing.”

The drumbeat abates slightly — quiet, lurking just beneath he surface, liable to break free at any time.

The Master continues, his tone almost mournful, “What happened to your promises, Doctor? Did they really mean that little to you?”

The Doctor bristles. “You betrayed me.”

The Master’s voice is dry as it fills the space around her. “I didn’t, but you were never a big picture person, were you? Always one step behind. Always that little bit slower than the rest of us.”

“You did.”

“ _Didn’t_ ,” the Master corrects. “It was all a big ploy, but it wound up proving that you never really believed in me. Never really meant it. So here we are again. Planet-killers. Fighting across the universe. Scrambling for the scraps of your attention.”

The Doctor’s mind races, and for better or for worse, she digs her heels in, hanging her hat upon the assumptions that this entire regeneration was built upon. “But you —“

“Are you listening, or do we need to go over this again?”

“You told me —“

“I lied.” He cuts her short.

Silence falls as she turns over the idea.

Somewhere, in that void, a single star flickers to life. It is weak and distant, but it exists.

“Then why do this now?” the Doctor asks. “Why not tell me? Why not work it out? Why not do any of the things we went over? There was a checklist. Or, at least, I think there was a checklist. Seemed important, checklists.” She’s blabbering, covering her ineptitude with meaningless nonsense. It’s a terrible habit, but she can’t seem to stop. She feels guilty. She feels incompetent, and worst of all, she failed her best friend.

“It’s not all about you.” The Master says matter-of-factly.

“It sounds like it’s all about me.”

“I destroyed our people. That changes a person.” A pause. Somewhere in that dark beyond, a constellation glimmers. Kasterborous. Their home. “But you would know. You’ve done that, too. Not so different, the two of us.”

Guilt gives way to rage.

Light and life explode, the drums intensify, and the Master shoves her out of his mind, slamming the door shut with a cavalier, “You’ll see me soon, I’m sure.”


End file.
